Ballyneal, as in the Irish "Bally" derived from the Gaelic phrase "Baile na", meaning "place of" and the Coloradan "O'neal" as in the O'neal brothers Jim and Rupert, is Colorado's answer to Nebraska's famed Sand Hills. Located in the eastern Colorado farm town of Holyoke (pop. 2223) where the brother's grew up, this is indeed "Place O'neal". Rupert and Jim are not golfing neophytes, or at least Jim isn't. He's the head pro at the Alistair Mackenzie designed Meadow Club just north of San Francisco, a hidden gem if there ever was one. He must have been one of the only kids to play golf in Holyoke back in the pre Tiger era and if he's anything like me he probably looked upon those rolling "Chop Hills" with as much adoration as the local motocross heads, only while they were looking to launch off them on dirt bikes, Jim was dreaming of launching golf balls off them. Now all these many years later his dream has become a reality. And what a reality it is.
The brothers wisely hired links golf guru Tom Doak who's "natural" approach to golf course design couldn't be better suited to a piece of land than Ballyneal. The Chop Hills are actually a small, unique geological phenomenon covering only a couple thousand acres. Most of eastern Colorado is as flat as a pancake and its not until Western Nebraska that you see the huge Sand Hills that are apparently seaside dunes left over from way back when the Gulf of California extended all the way up here. To explain their presence, Rupert posited his own "Nebraska Sucks" theory. He assured me the name of his theory has nothing to do with the fact that he went to the University of Colorado, but rather his purely scientific estimation that the gulf waters receded or "sucked" out of Nebraska and left the rippling Chop Hills in their wake - kind of like the patterns you see at the beach when the tide goes out. Whatever their origin, they are golf country.
The Chop Hills are not as grand as the Sand Hills. They have a harshness to them (I hate to use words like ugly or severe) that recalls not so much Ireland as Scotland - Carnoustie comes to mind. Not a bad track that. And Doak builds on this devilishness with his usual array of wild bumps and bunkers. Not since Pacific Dunes has it felt so good to get totally hosed by a fifty yard carom into jagged backhoe torn slash of sand. This is links golf by the strictest definition: land reclaimed from the sea, even if the sea left town ten thousand years ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment